The ship landed safely. If the definition of 'safe' includes 'on fire, but not currently exploding'... Ty wasn't sure how his ship survived entering the atmosphere, but he was grateful that it had, even though he'd smacked his head hard enough to black out for a few minutes. The Sentries told him, but he didn't remember. Smoke was everywhere, and getting outside was top priority. The robots opened the door and everyone darted out. Actually, Ty did that- the robots just walked out calmly. They knew there was time.
"Why can't I just have a nice, normal mission? For once?" the Ranger griped. He hit his hands against the sides of his head, which was stupid, and collected himself- complaining would be counterproductive right now, and not at all rational behavior. Ty needed to go back inside and grab the survival kit and the other spacesuit. Toilet paper too, if there was time. Ty had been through enough disasters and crash landings to know modern hygiene was the very first thing he'd miss. He bolted back in, got the kit, the suit, his extra thermal layer and underwear, and even some toilet paper. Alarms he could do nothing about were going off.
Mentally calculating the odds, Ty decided to take a risk and get some non-perishable food (and oil for the Sentries) from the kitchen. The fridge goods were doomed. And he'd been looking forward to that rice pudding, too. The fridge was one of the few things Talnak hadn't tampered with... Oh, to heck with it. He opened the fridge and grabbed the pudding. No reason to let it go to waste, right?
The unfortunate trio carried their armloads (the robots had grabbed a few other things as well) up a hill, into a flower forest. His ship made some banging and popping noises, anticlimactically collapsing on itself. Then it blew up. All three escaped passengers could hear the crystals shattering, and were far enough that the few shards that burst through the metal didn't reach them. The cockpit spun through the air and landed, but the blast didn't fling the wreckage so much as lazily scatter it.
Sentry Nine looked at him.
"Sir, you got the oil?" he sounded surprised.
"Sure did." Why wouldn't he?
"Thanks! You know, most of you organics forget things like that," Nine thanked him. Ty couldn't help but smile. Sentry bots as a whole were distantly polite, so this one was probably happier than he let on.
Now that everyone was safe, Ranger Parsec examined the environment. The first thing he noticed was the sheer size of the flowers. They were daisies as tall as houses. The petals stretched out above him, blocking the sun. He wondered what the trees were like. Were there trees? His suit sensors said the air was safe, so Ty lowered the helmet. The air was pleasant- warm, not too humid, and a gentle breeze would have ruffled his hair if it wasn't currently posable. Strong floral scents surrounded him, and the ground beneath him was coated with a thick, spongy layer of moss. It almost made up for the pounding headache.
Since the Sentries were setting up the camp site, Ty decided to fly around a little, to get a better look at the area. He turned on his jetpack, and flew above the daisies. The field stretched on for miles in every direction, flowers swaying in the breeze. Or maybe that was him. I should probably be resting. A little higher, and he could see over the hill. Flowers that way too, not all of them daisies. Below, the ship was still smoldering. Something was scuttling on the ground near it, but it was too far for him to tell what it was. Out beyond his landing site, the ground was grayish-brown and rocky. It looked like... He went higher to confirm it... A wide, dried up riverbed, with what was possibly a stream in the middle. With any luck, the water was potable. On the other side, the flower forest continued. The mega-daisies on that side were interspersed with twisted, leafy spiked vines covered in vividly colored flowers with too many extra tendrils and other floral things (he's a Ranger, not a botanist). Really, they looked like evolution had taken psychedelics before working on them. He could see the neon purple zigzag patterns on the blue petals from his place in the air. "Must be pretty intense up close," he mumbled thoughtfully. His stomach growled, and his head reminded him of his recent crimes against it.
He glanced at the ship. The scuttling thing was gone. The man looped back through the camp to make sure everything was going well. Then he ate the pudding. It was delicious (going without food for over a day sure makes a guy obsessive, he noticed). Ty put the Sentries on duty and took a nap- adrenaline rushes have a way of sucking out energy after the fact, and there was no way he was going back to the ship less than alert after that friendly little message.
Ty woke up an hour later feeling pretty good, given the circumstances. All his basic needs were taken care of, the headache was gone, nothing had tried to eat him, and the ship was probably safe to approach now. As soon as his signal reached somebody, help would be on its way. It would be like camping! There was no reason to worry. Well, there were some, but they didn't need to be all-consuming. Just don't get consumed, haha, he thought, spoiling his own mood. I really need to stop doing that.
The air was getting a little cooler, so he thought it best to check the ship before dark, whenever that was. That scuttling thing was something to keep track of. The idea that it might be inside the wreckage popped into his head and refused to leave. Maybe it's friendly, or it left, he reassured himself. And maybe it's a cannibal, like Imek said, the more cynical side of him retorted. The Ranger walked down, using the daisies as cover. After all, if there was trouble it was better to avoid it finding him. Until you walk right up to it, smart guy, he snarked at himself.
The stranger's fear hadn't lasted long. Very quickly, he recovered and went back into the ship. It grabbed some supplies, and then he and the robots ran away. Rhyssa realized there was probably a very good reason for that, so she ducked back into the hole and shot down to the bottom. A few Workers gestured questioningly, and she directed the silly things back to the Hive. Some tried to sneak past her and she gently blocked them. They left in mild disappointment, speeding up at a shattering sound. One groomed the ends of Rhyssa's antennae before leaving -that's all she could reach- while the rest had fled down the tunnel before she even finished her instructions. Pops and bangs filtered down from the surface, before a big one put an end to the noise. It was really hot in the tunnel after that.
After a long while, it sounded quiet enough (and felt cool enough) to investigate. She came out of the hole, and crawled on all six around the site. The smoke made her uneasy, as did something else she could smell but not identify. Smoke made smelling things difficult.
Rhyssa pointed her antennae toward the ship, and ran to it. Rather than solving the mystery behind this stranger's arrival, there was even more confusion. The settling smoke was crowding everything else out, and heavy particles of it stuck to her antennae, but she pressed on. This was nothing. She could handle this.
The old texts assured her that foreigners were aggressive, sneaky, and cruel but would avoid conflict when in small numbers- in fact they were easily subdued. A single outsider with two (presumably unarmed) robots counted as small, didn't it?
The wreck was cool enough to touch, so long as she stayed away from the back of it. The cockpit had been flung a short distance and was somewhat intact. So she pushed her way into a crack in the hull. She couldn't really smell anything, so once she was inside the Soldier stopped to clean herself. Rhyssa was glad she wasn't a Worker right now- she had bristly sensory hairs on her antennae and a few other places, but they had fuzzy, cuddly hair all over. It was a nightmare to keep clean, especially since they always tried to turn it into a game. It was very cute until a smelly one refused to cooperate (then it was cute, but annoying).
The ship looked bizarre. Almost all the surfaces were bare metal with white paint. The colorful buttons were rectangular or round, and the viewing window was a large rounded rectangle. Even the door was rectangular, and the individual floor panels were squares. It didn't make any sense. Why, of all shapes, did foreigners like rectangles? Hexagons were clearly the superior shape- they were more pleasing to the eye and had less stress on the corners.
Maybe it has something to do with the number of limbs they have, she thought to herself.
The ship smelled weird. Some sort of chemical was smeared all over everything. Some species she didn't recognize had been inside, too. The stranger had been agitated frequently on his journey, and he'd been hosting a Sky Devil for most of it. Rhyssa suspected those two facts were related. She also smelled that the stranger had been violently attacked by the Sky Devil in question, and she quickly smashed back her sympathies. Served him right for not killing it when he had the chance.
She heard something big scuttling by. Would that outsider have come back? It wasn't unlikely, especially if he wanted to scavenge something or send a message. She began to slip back out of the cockpit, but heard the foreigner yell out in surprise. When had he shown up? She was pretty sure those jetpacks make noise. Did it walk here? Shortly after the yell, something else made a 'click-click-swee' noise. Ah. A creek-spider was going to take care of things for her. No need to worry, just fly away when it's over. Creek-spiders don't chase prey if they're already eating. She poked her head out to watch, expecting the large predator to sink its fangs into the foreigner in the next second. Hopefully somewhere the foreigner wouldn't hurt too much...
To her surprise, the stranger fought ferociously. He shot the creek-spider in the face with some kind of wrist-laser. The beast charged, and he shot it again, but this time the arachnid scrambled to safety. The outsider waited, wrist ready to fire... And nothing happened, so he shook his head in the direction of the creature and walked up to the cockpit. Rhyssa squeezed back inside, taking cover behind a... What was it called? Chain?... next to the control panel, waiting for her chance.
A laser beam sliced through the door, and cut out a circle (at least it wasn't another rectangle). The foreigner stepped through the hole and down some steps, grumbling to himself. He sat down on his 'chain' and poked at some buttons. Rhyssa tackled him.
A/N: Ty really can't catch a break, can he?